You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
